Denzel, Wahlberg have a blast in overly familiar '2 Guns'

Aug. 1, 2013

Thousands of rounds of ammo are spent in 2 Guns, a brutal, complicated and sporadically funny movie that still seems slight.

The saving grace (two stars out of four; rated R; opens Friday nationwide) is the chemistry between Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg as a pair of undercover lawmen who wend their way through a series of double, triple and quadruple crosses. The scenes in which they're riffing and tangling with each other, bickering about pulling off a bank robbery, plotting how to escape or bantering about what to order for breakfast are quite funny.

Washington plays Robert "Bobby" Trench, an undercover DEA agent, and Wahlberg is Marcus "Stig" Stigman, an undercover naval intelligence officer. Their assignment is to infiltrate a drug cartel headed by kingpin Papi Greco (Edward James Olmos). Neither agent knows that the other is working undercover and that they've been set up. In a New Mexico town, they rob a bank that they believe houses most of the cartel's money. The expected take is about $3 million. But, they make off with tens of millions more. Soon, they're wanted by a slew of characters, from the Mob to the military to the CIA.

Bill Paxton appears to be having a great time as the smarmy Earl, a mysterious Southern-accented government operative with a penchant for Russian roulette. James Marsden plays a crooked Navy officer with clean-cut menace.

Paula Patton plays Deb, a DEA agent entangled occasionally with Bobby. She's the only female character of any note -- the rest are extras and one waitress who utters a few sentences. Deb's part in the complex scenario is key, though her character is not well-developed. Mostly, we see her romancing Bobby.

The rest of the story is devoted to guns, drugs and money. And an explosion or 10. Except for one scene in which the ostensible pair of heroic "guns" decide to waterboard Greco. Their plan is foiled, but they're disturbingly enthusiastic about the prospect. All the Latinos in the film are portrayed as either slimy players in the drug game or undocumented immigrants.

Stig does a lot of flirting and winking, but he's not allocated a romantic interest. He's a sure shot, but not exactly a smooth talker. In a frustrated moment he calls Bobby "a misanthorpe" and Bobby duly corrects his mispronunciation.

Bobby and Stig could be playing an elaborate game of chess, only what's at stake is their lives. The complex web they're entangled in grows more intricate as the movie unfolds, culminating in a rather anti-climactic Mexican standoff.

The ultra-complicated plot doesn't mask the fact that this is a cynical and derivative movie, based on the Boom! graphic novels by Steven Grant. At least it's briskly paced. But its story and gritty look give off a feeling of cinematic déjà vu.

By its conclusion the story has worked so hard to be twisting and clever that it runs out of steam and becomes outlandish, marked by a surplus of violence -- too often casual and gratuitous -- for what essentially is a buddy cop movie.